Are you used to the controls on SM or another 2-d game? Well on this game you're limited compared to the future games. For example: there is no "aiming down", no diagonals, no bomb jumping (well, it is possible but extremely hard to do,) no wall jumping, and no mid air morphing (Super Metroid.) It may take awhile to get used to these changes but once you do, it is much easier to actually complete the game. To train yourself I suggest just running around Brinstar (starting area) for a while.

In This game there is a limited variety to the upgrades you can get. This list includes:255 missiles8 e-tanks (although only 6 show)long beamice beam (there is two)wave beammorph ballbombshigh jump bootsscrew attackvaria suit

Now with these items you can see that there are a lot of missing items from the future games. Most notably IMO (in my opinion) is space jump, so you're going to have to get used to these items; fear not, getting used to this is a lot easier than getting used to the controls.

Note: Whenever you pick up a beam it will replace your old one. EX: You have ice beam and you pick up wave beam, you now have wave beam without ice. Also, whenever you pick a beam the item will disappear but the other two will come back.

Have you gotten to Kraid and just gotten annihilated? Yea, he is a pain in the ass. Here are strategies for all of the bosses.

Ridley:Fight Ridley first, it makes Kraid so much easier. Alright, now for the battle plan:Get as many e-tanks as possible, equip your wave beam and head for Ridley. When you reach his room jump down into the lava and go directly below him. (You're probably saying "WTF?!?" but just try this and you'll see.) Now keep jumping up and down while aiming up and shooting. Throughout this entire battle Ridley shouldn't hit you once and you should only take about 20 damage from the lava.

Here is an alternative strategy:

Quote from JaggerG:

-Against Ridley, he has 2 random patterns determined by (I believe) the time you enter the room. For one pattern, he shoots fireballs in a very thin arc and they bounce across at you. In this scenario, you should have the ICE beam. You can freeze his six or so fireballs and stand on them to fast-fire him in the face, occasionally backing off for a bit to refreeze the fireballs. For the other pattern, he shoots them in really long arcs. You can just run right under them, and stand right in front of him, constantly fast-firing until he's dead. Your likely take less than 20 damage in both scenarios.

Either strategy works, try them both and see which one you prefer.

Kraid:I hate this fat S.O.B. Collect as many upgrades as possible and make sure to have at least 4 e-tanks. As far as I know this is the easiest possible strategy for him. Go into morphball and keep bombing him till he finally passes away. This should only take about 2 and a half e-tanks away from you if you're good.

Tip:

Quote from JaggerG:

-If you get hit by your bombs, you're actually INVINCIBLE for a second. If you can keep up that invincibility and keep hitting him, you can survive on one etank, but really, at least 250 damage is probably most common still.

Quote from JaggerG:

-If you get hit by your bombs, you're actually INVINCIBLE for a second.

That is very good to keep in mind for kraid.

Mother Brain:This fight may seem difficult due to the rinkas and the turrets but those only make this fight extremely annoying. Go into MB's room and destroy the zebetites, leave the room to refill then go back for MB (optional.) Freeze the rinkas or simply dodge them and unload missiles into MB till she dies. (should take about 20 missiles to kill her.)

Note: Ice beam makes Tourain so much easier, although it isn't required. Also, Wave beam does not hurt Mother Brain or the zebetites, it has been tested.

Brinstar:Simply go up and down the shafts shooting the enemies for refills, not much else to say sorry.

Norfair:You can find any room with the respawning bugs and kill those for refills. (wave beam makes this a lot easier.)

Ridley's Hideout:Once you get screw attack go to the bottom of Ridley's elevator and go left one room. See the sidehoppers? Continuously screw attack into them and go back and forth through the room to make them respawn.

Kraid's Hideout:The room right in front of Kraid is your best bet, the respawning bee there is excellent for refilling.

Tourain:This one is by far the easiest, go one room to the right of MB, go to the farthest right of that room, go through the right door and shoot your ice beam, you will freeze two metroids, kill them, leave the room and repeat.

-There actually is bomb jumping, it just requires extremely specific timing. I can't personally do more than a double bomb jump (required to take a shortcut at the bottom of the first shaft in Hideout 1).

-You can actually fast-fire at double the normal rate by holding A and tapping left or right. It fires both as you press the direction and as you release it.

-You should have mentioned the functioning of the doors, in case others haven't played Zero Mission or Super Metroid before. It takes five missiles to open Red doors, and ten missiles to open Pink doors. I gave up on the game my first time through so many years ago because I fired one missile at a red door and it didn't open. >_<

-Aren't there 8 etanks? I could be mistaken.

-You missed Varia Suit.

-Technically, there IS a map. It's in the instruction booklet that nobody has. It only has the shapes of the entire areas, though, except maybe Tourian but that's not really tough to get lost in.

-Can't you just post this guide on GameFAQs? Better yet, couldn't someone else just look up the guides on GameFAQs? You're using their maps as references, after all.

-Against Ridley, he has 2 random patterns determined by (I believe) the time you enter the room. For one pattern, he shoots fireballs in a very thin arc and they bounce across at you. In this scenario, you should have the ICE beam. You can freeze his six or so fireballs and stand on them to fast-fire him in the face, occasionally backing off for a bit to refreeze the fireballs. For the other pattern, he shoots them in really long arcs. You can just run right under them, and stand right in front of him, constantly fast-firing until he's dead. You likely take less than 20 damage in both scenarios. About 20 less damage than your method.

-Your strategy against Kraid is pretty much the same as mine, but it should be noted that if you get hit by your bombs, you're actually INVINCIBLE for a second. If you can keep up that invincibility and keep hitting him, you can survive on one etank, but really, at least 250 damage is probably most common still.

-If you beat both Kraid AND Ridley, you should have more than enough missiles for the zebetites and MB I think. Especially if you've been collecting extra missile tanks. I don't remember any turrets in the Mother Brain fight, though. Just the 2 rinkas that are really tough to freeze just right.

-I suggest only picking up the Ice beam, since the other one disables it. It's kind of cool that it has more coverage and is stronger and kills faster, but considering you're just gonna have to get the other Ice beam later on, I prefer to just stick to my guns, so to speak.

I think you've misinterpreted my fast-fire trick. It's not for shooting both directions at the same time, it's for using one of the directions to fire at double the normal rate. Try it out. For fights such as against Ridley that you feel like shooting faster than normal, your beam hits him before you can max out your beams per instant limit, so you can pretty much fire like 12 shots in a second just by holding shoot and tapping left six times. It's just as effect using missiles in his crotch, too, since because it's point blank, they hit as soon as you fire.

I think you've misinterpreted my fast-fire trick. It's not for shooting both directions at the same time, it's for using one of the directions to fire at double the normal rate. Try it out. For fights such as against Ridley that you feel like shooting faster than normal, your beam hits him before you can max out your beams per instant limit, so you can pretty much fire like 12 shots in a second just by holding shoot and tapping left six times. It's just as effect using missiles in his crotch, too, since because it's point blank, they hit as soon as you fire.

Alright I fixed that.

Quote from BioSpark:

from what i remember there are 8 energy tanks but you can't hold more than 5.

Playing through this game again, but this time on the 3DS. I've practically forgotten everything about this game since the last time I've played (when i wrote this guide.) So frustrating, but I'm really glad I wrote all this down. =D

So I read this again and found some false info, mostly provided by me lol.

Ridley: his pattern seems dependent on your death/save count, and maaaybe on item collection, but I'm not sure. By default for my runs, he shoots far on normal resolution versions, and near on gba ports.

Kraid: actually, freezing his spikes, tanking damage, and spamming missiles is apparently more reliable because it's so much faster. Dragondarch recommends freezing the top spike and pressing against it. I freeze the top and middle in mid-air and put my back against one to nullify knockback. His strat is faster, mine is...also valid? Sure.

Both bosses: unlike normal enemies, Kraid and Ridley take 4 damage from missiles, and 1 damage from EVERYTHING ELSE. Regardless of beam combination. Bombs can hit 2 times, SA can hit multiple times but the bosses are too short to get many hits in. Ridley has 140hp, Kraid has 96.

Mother Brain: technically, missiles only do 1 damage. Nothing else hurts it. The glass obviously has 1hp, MB has 32. There are 3 rinkas firing at you all fight, so freeze those and spam missiles. 3 rounds oughtta do it, I think. Also once the screen changes palette, you no longer take damage.

-

Farming:

Brinstar: top left, there are 2 pipes spaced apart, to the right is a crab fly thing. Run from the red bug pipe into the 1tile high step, spam the beam, you have a chance to get 20 health + anything the third pipe bug drops + possible geemer drop. Run left to lure the pipe bugs out, kill the red one and repeat the process. Much faster than farming geemers alone.

Norfair: from the Brinstar elevator, go right, there's a repeating pattern of platforms that may contain novas. Kill as many blue ones as you see. I don't recommend farming very much here, though.

Hideout 2 (Ridley): yes, pipe bugs, but if you have a ton of missiles, the flying meatball room at the bottom of the right shaft leading to Ridley. Kill every meatball you see and you're practically guaranteed 200 health. It's even easier than getting the e-tank behind Ridley.

Hideout 1 (Kraid): etanks. Honestly, though the pipebug before Kraid is an option, you're probably better off resetting and starting over. Farming just 100 hp can take like half an hour sometimes.

Tourian: the elevator room, and the last group of 3 before the zebetites. Note about missile drop luck: the drops are ordered as you enter each room, so each drop just checks the next drop in the predetermined list. BUT, if you kill more than one metroid in one shot, they all give you the same drop. So if you're farming for the seemingly infinitely rare missiles, do this: freeze one, stand next to it mashing ice beam until the other 2 get frozen (their position is irrelevant, even if they're behind you, the have to overlap you to latch on, so they still freeze). Once all 3 freeze, shoot 4 missiles. Not 5. Then step back and kill them one at a time. This uses 7 missiles and yields 3 unique drops, as opposed to the normal means of spending 5 missiles to get the same health drop. It's more than double the efficiency. Buuut on the other hand if you get a missile drop, it's only 1 drop. Still, if you're unlucky, 1 at a time is more cost effective.

I think I'm glad I didn't see this until after finishing M1 last week on my 3DS (the only time I've played it in which I actually got past Brinstar), because I would've spent an extra few hours looking for the eighth e-tank even though I'd already noticed that the seventh one didn't count. (I think it was the one in Kraid's room that I missed.) As it is, I got the Brinstar ice beam after getting the Norfair ice beam, and couldn't figure out what it was because nothing changed -- even though I knew there were two ice beams in the game. Thought at first that's what had allowed me to hold down shoot because apparently I hadn't tried that previously.

Incidentally, in the room before Mother Brain, it's not necessary to leave the room to get the two metroids closest to MB's room to respawn. Going most of the way to the left door will do it.